IN 2017 travel publisher Rough Guides issued the result of an online survey declaring Scotland the most welcoming country in the world. 

This reflected the words of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s statement to the Scottish Parliament that Scotland remains an “open, inclusive, outward-looking nation.” It was the First Minister’s use of the word “remains” that grabbed my attention, the easy acceptance that “we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns” and always had been.

I fell into conversation this week with a colleague over the word “remains” and was told he agreed with Ms Sturgeon, that Scotland had always been more welcoming and accepting to immigrant communities. I am guessing he quickly saw I was about to raise the issue of Irish immigration, as with only the minutest of pauses he said “I am not talking about Ireland.” Even as I write I still do not understand why Irish immigration is somehow “different” but I asked what made him think that historically Scotland was different from the rest of the UK?

His response was to describe events of our own lifetime. The high media profile and electoral surges of far-right political parties in England in the 1970s and ’80s, the vile racist abuse that sporting figures, particularly footballers such as Chelsea’s Paul Canoville, had received, and evidence of institutional racism in public bodies such as the Metropolitan Police – none of these, he said, had parallels in Scotland. I had been wondering where my colleague had been going with his argument, as when he reached his concluding sentence I was waiting for the ironic raise of the eyebrows which didn’t come.